I am happy to serve as the Committee Chair for the 'MediaLab' which is 1/2 of a new non-profit art and science lab here in Fort Wayne. (the other 1/2 being the 'TekLab')
This exciting new facility will be called TekVenture and I encourage you to follow the link for a better description than I can give. I will say that it is going to be AMAZING! As we search for a permanent building we are in the process of putting together a mobile lab to showcase on a smaller scale what TekVenture is all about. It is called, appropriately enough, the 'TekMobile'.
Yesterday, my son Logan and I traveled with a group of TekVenture Board and Committee members to the Fab Lab, housed within the walls of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
We were lucky enough to get a private tour and we participated in one of the "projects" that the Fab Lab offers. The 'project' - to create with a computer graphics program an 'object' which was sent to a laser cutter and fashioned out of the material of your choice. One might think that creating graphics on a daily basis as part of my job would make this exercise boring or routine, but no. I typically hand draw or computer generate 2 dimensional graphics rendered on 2 dimensional paper, so adding this 3rd dimension was a rush. Logan and I could have spent all day (all week) there making prototypes for the next big widget, but were kicked out for salivating all over the equipment. Actually, our time was over and the lab was closed to the public yesterday as there was serious work going on by some young geniuses working on a circuit board building curriculum for the lab and on the One Laptop Per Child Program.
The experience at the Fab Lab multiplied my desire to see TekVenture get off the ground and to provide a place for artists and scientists of every age to interact and to CREATE.
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